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Earning College Credit Before College A Worthwhile Investment

As college costs rise and student success rates stagnate, states and institutions of higher education have grappled with creative ways to improve student outcomes – particularly for those who are traditionally underserved. Recently, policymakers have increasingly turned to programs that target students even before they enroll full time in college, by implementing and expanding dual enrollment options that allow students to earn college credit while in high school.

In theory, dual enrollment programs (along with programs like Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate) benefit students in at least two crucial ways. First, by getting college credits out of the way inexpensively (and often for free), students enter college needing to earn fewer credits in order to graduate on time. Second, the exposure to more difficult coursework in a postsecondary-type setting may better prepare students mentally for the rigors of college-level coursework. These benefits may be particularly rewarding for low-income students, who finish college at significantly lower rates than their higher-income counterparts.

And, in a recent NBER working paper, researchers from the College Board and Harvard found that attaining a passing score on the AP exam increases the probability of receiving a college degree in 4 years by 1-2 percentage points per exam. Of course, students who pass an AP exam are, in general, better students than those who don’t pass the exam. To control for this, the authors used a regression discontinuity approach that compared students just above the passing threshold to those just below. While these students performed almost identically on the exam, the students who earned the score just above passing moved more quickly toward graduation.

As a result, offering opportunities for high school students to earn college credit can produce valuable longer-term benefits in college, especially for lower-income students. While many states and institutions have dual enrollment programs, a few are on the cutting edge.

Dual enrollment programs, by themselves, are not enough to improve student outcomes across the board and close the opportunity gaps between different socioeconomic strata. But, as research has consistently shown, they can be remarkably effective vehicles for students to get a head start on establishing – and ultimately completing – their college educations.

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